The invention generally relates to communicating web site user information through the internet and, more particularly, to a method of communicating such web site user information to a web site server while shielding the true identity of the user from the web site server.
A common problem facing users of the world wide internet is the difficulty of maintaining user privacy. An internet user generally wishes to browse the internet and visit various web sites without being tracked or monitored. On the other hand, web site operators or web page host providers need information about the internet users who visits its sites. Web site operators collect information that is useful in compiling demographic information about the users in general. Web site operators need this information to track the number of visitors to a web site, make educated estimates to price advertising associated with the web site, and to collect other information about the internet users. In this manner, a web site operator can compile xe2x80x9cNielsenxe2x80x9d type data for potential advertisers and other interested parties. To this end, demographic information is quantified and the web site operator or advertiser can determine the efficacy of the advertising money spent.
While an internet user may be willing to provide user information such as age, income range, job description, etc., many are unwilling to do so in association with their actual identification. Aside from the collected information possibly being used as a source of annoying sales calls or junk email and the like, provision of actual identification in association with the user information potentially diminishes the personal security of the user.
One known method of collecting internet user information uses an open profiling standard (OPS) protocol. Pursuant to the OPS protocol, after the internet user accesses a particular web site, the web site automatically requests that the user input the information requested. Once the user information is collected, such as a personal profile, the information is saved in a file on the computer of the user or on a web-based server. This information includes, but is not limited to, fields for providing name, company, address, telephone number, email address, facsimile number, age, race, income level, marriage status, home owner status, employment status, shopping preferences, entertainment preferences, hobbies, medical information, and the like.
The internet user inputs information into those fields that the internet user wishes to disclose. When the internet user revisits a particular site, the stored OPS profile is sent, with the consent of the user, to the web site operator, again. This shortens the accessing time the internet user spends by eliminating repetitive manual entry of the OPS user information each time the web site is accessed. Disadvantageously, the actual identity of the user is also collected and the user information that is collected is limited to how much the of the OPS information the internet user divulges in creating the OPS profile. This information in the OPS profile is static unless the user wishes to update it.
Another method of collecting information by the web site operator is to implant xe2x80x9ccookiesxe2x80x9d into the computer of the internet user. A cookie is a short segment of code that a web site operator downloads through the internet into the computer program memory of the internet user. The cookie gathers and stores information about the user at a memory location of the computer of the user controlled by the cookie. Each time a particular web site is accessed, the web site operator is capable of scanning the computer of the internet user to activate the cookie and retrieve the information gathered and stored by the cookie. This automatically gathered information about the user is retrieved by means of the cookie manipulating the user computer to send the gathered information to the operating computer of the web site operator through the internet.
These cookies are capable of automatically informing the web site operator of the web sites visited, the items purchased via electronic commerce, the chat rooms and news groups visited and other like information that the cookie is programmed to gather and have stored for access by the web site operator. This information gathering is dynamic and does not require the user to manually enter any of the information gathered.
Thus, cookies are capable of developing similar information about the internet user as discussed above. The disadvantage with cookies is privacy. A cookie is placed automatically on the computer of the user to track information about the user. When the user accesses a particular site, the web site operator either plants a cookie onto the computer if there is not already one present, or retrieves the information collected from a previously implanted cookie.
In addition to the OPS system discussed above, there are other systems that enable anonymous browsing of the web including the Lucent Personalized Web Browser, or LPWA, the ATandT Crowds browser, the Anonymizer browser, the WWW Junk Buster browser and the Trust e browser. There are also other systems which filter cookies or remove the cookies already entered into the computer of the user to prevent the automatic transmission of user information associated the actual identity of the user. These include Luckman""s Anonymous Cookie, the WWW Junk Buster and a plurality of other good privacy encryption software, or pretty good privacy (PGP). A comparison of their various features is illustrated in the following chart.
Disadvantageously, these system all lack a proper balance between the desire of a web site operator to collect meaningful information and the willingness of a web site user to provide the information to a web site operator and the privacy of an internet user. If the privacy consideration is satisfied, then the internet user will be more apt to divulge valuable information to the web site operator.
In accordance with the present invention, the disadvantageous lack of balance between privacy and user information collection are substantially overcome by automatically creating an alias identification for the user that is provided to the web site operator in lieu of the actual identity of the user and in association with demographic and other non-identifying information concerning the actual user.
Cookies are more tolerable if the information is voluntarily provided by the user with an alias identity The web page operator is able to obtain the demographic information desired, and the user is able to maintain privacy.
In accordance with one aspect of the invention, the alias identity is not stored anywhere. Instead, each time an identity is to be provided from the computer of the user, an alias identity is automatically generated by means of an encryption process performed at the computer of the user.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention, the encryption process by which the alias identity is generated operates in part based on the actual user identity.
Another feature of the invention is that the same alias identity is automatically generated each time there is a command received to do so to enable the web page operator to automatically ascertain multiple xe2x80x9chitsxe2x80x9d on the web page by the same user without revealing to the web page operator the actual identity of user.
The alias user identity is automatically generated upon generation of a command to do so. In the case of manual operation, the command is given by key stroke. In the case of a cookie, the command is generated automatically when the user accesses an associated web page.
Specifically, the invention is achieved by communicating computer web site user information from one user computer or a remote (computer) on which the user has stored information to an internet web site by automatically creating an alias or an encrypted identification of a user and automatically enabling a web site operating computer to dynamically access the user information together with only the user""s alias identification while the user is connected with a web site.
The invention is also achieved by communicating computer internet web site user information from a user computer to an internet web site by creating a user data record profile, encrypting the user data record profile to create an encrypted data record profile, dynamically generating an alias user identification, linking the dynamically generated alias user identification with the encrypted data record profile to create a user information record, and transmitting the user information record to a web site in response to a request for the information record. Preferably, the user information record is transmitted to the web site in response to one of a user command and web site access via one of HTTP and XML.